MnSOD Enzyme: A medical breakthrough to fight breast cancer discovered

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For generations, doctors and other medical experts are struggling to come up with the best therapy for breast cancer. But just recently, a team of scientists from the National University of Singapore has discovered a breakthrough on the relationship between breast cancer tumor intracellular reduction-oxidation reaction (redox) and the invasive ability of the cancer cell.

The study was conducted in the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at NUS and NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Experts discovered that Manganese Superoxide

Dismutase (MnSOD) is the key enzyme that regulates cellular redox environment. Thus, it causes breast cancer cells to be aggressive and to spread throughout the other parts of body causing secondary tumors.

Dr. Loo Ser Yue, a former graduate student of NUS Yon Loo Lin School of Medicine and the first author of the study, explained that in the early stage of breast cancer, MnSOD enzyme are decreased but as the cancer progresses, MnSOD also becomes higher.

"In fact, we have shown that less aggressive tumors, when artificially induced with high level of MnSOD proteins, adopt an aggressive behavior", Dr. Yue added. Likewise, it has been observed that most of the breast cancer patients are triple-negative which have a higher level of MnSOD.

Cancer cells refers to the cells that continue to grow abnormally not like normal cells, they grow and die out from ageing and damage. The study aimed to find more clues on the aggressive behavior of the breast cancer cells to progresses rapidly to other parts of the body.

Hence, the results show a greater breakthrough in identifying the cause of these behaviors of the breast cancer cells and relatively finding a possible treatment to the disease.

Per Dr. Alan Prem Kumar from the Cancer Institute of Singapore at NUS mentioned, "By suppressing MnSOD expression or its activity in tipple-negative breast cancer patients, we are able to make tumor cells less aggressive and more sensitive to chemotherapy."

Thus, it is possible that in the process of the treatment with lesser MnSOD in the body, chances to treat breast cancer will eventually be high.